HC Deb 02 April 2003 vol 402 c726W
Mr. Willetts

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to his answers to the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice), of 3 March 2003,Official Report, columns 878–79W, and 4 March 2003, Official Report, columns 895–96W, on filestores, for what reason the (a) number of staff employed in the Department's filestores and (b) the cost of those stores has increased since 1998–99, with particular reference to the rises prior to the Department's name change. [104535]

Mr. McCartney

In the answers I gave earlier I explained that separate figures for staffing and costs for most filestores are not available for some or all of the years in the table. The available information included data from just 13 filestores in 1997–98, rising to 62 filestores in 2001–02. The figures for each year are therefore not comparable and there is no evidence that staffing numbers or costs have increased.